Archive for September, 2013

After shooting the first two films — “The Soul of the Bone” and “Drifters” — of his “Trilogy on Solitude,” Cao Guimaraes decided to team up with fellow director Marcelo Gomes for the project’s third and final installment. “The Man of the Crowd,” loosely based on Edgar Allan Poe’s1840 short story of the same name, explores the nature of loneliness. The... Read more

Egypt has selected Ibrahim El Batout’s eye-opening drama “Winter of Discontent,” about the events that led up to the Tahrir Square uprising, as it’s candidate for the foreign-language Academy Award race. The significant choice comes with the country in protracted turmoil amid the crackdown on Islamists that has followed the ouster by the military of... Read more

Former telecommunications company chief executive Joseph Nacchio entered prison in 2009 out of shape, depressed and anxious. Fifty-four months later, Mr. Nacchio, 64 years old, who once ran Qwest Communications International Inc., has emerged physically unrecognizable from his pre-incarceration life. Prison appears to have shaved years off his looks. He has broad shoulders from a daily regimen of lifting weights and 5-mile walks and runs. He has a goatee and his head, formerly covered with black hair, is completely shaved and tan. He says his blood pressure and cholesterol are lower than when he entered prison and his body fat has dropped dramatically. He thinks he looks like actor Edward Norton on his federal Bureau of Prisons identification card. Prison also offered the CEO, who once was surrounded by highflying telecom executives before his prosecution for insider trading in 2007, a new set of peers: drug offenders Spoonie and Juice, and a bunkmate named Spider. Read the rest of this post on the original site »

The formal bidding process for sports agency powerhouse IMG is about to begin. The sale process for the firm, which reps athletes and handles event production and marketing for numerous franchises around the world, has been in the works for months. A source close to the situation confirmed a New York Times report that the... Read more

Venice festival player “Bethlehem” swept the country’s Ophir Awards on Saturday, winning best film, casting, editing and supporting actor for Tsahi Halevi on Saturday in Tel Aviv. Israel usually sends the winner of the Ophirs, given by the Israeli Film and TV Academy, to the Oscars as its foreign-lingo film entry. Pic, co-directed by Yuval... Read more

Say what you will about Steve Ballmer as a CEO. But you can’t deny that the longtime Microsoft chief has got heart. In an emotional send-off to the company he was a part of for more than three decades, Ballmer delivered a tearful goodbye speech at Microsoft’s annual employee meeting, held in Seattle’s KeyArena and attended by more than 13,000 staff (with another 25,000 tuning in via Webcast). “Soak it in,” Ballmer said in his heartfelt speech to employees. “You work for the greatest company in the world.” Ballmer, who was one of Microsoft’s earliest hires, and was named CEO in January of 2000 , announced last month that he plans to retire from his post within the next 12 months. The board is currently on the hunt for a new CEO, eyeing execs like Ford’s Alan Mulally and the recently acquired Nokia’s Stephen Elop. The Verge obtained exclusive video of the final, most emotional part of his speech, which you should definitely watch — “Dirty Dancing” sendoff music and all.

This year’s Operation Smile gala brought grins to the faces and tears to the eyes of attendees. While event host Brooke Burke-Charvet shared touching details about her recent goodwill medical mission, honorees Kate Walsh, Kevin Beggs and Randy Sherman discussed the charity’s impact on the children who have received free surgeries to repair their facial deformities.... Read more

When the 51st annual New York Film Festival kicked off with the world premiere of “Captain Phillips” Sept. 27, NYFF opening nighters became the first big crowd to get a look at the Paul Greengrass drama starring Tom Hanks. What’d they think? Come on, this is New York. There were as many opinions as there... Read more

The hottest, stealthiest social network won’t be found in any Silicon Valley incubator. It’s up and running. And you may already be a member. In an effort spanning the past three years, the United States National Security Agency has mined its massive stores of collected citizen metadata to create a series of social graphs, according to documents and confidential sources unearthed by the New York Times , mapping the large, interconnected web of connections between people. The graphs — which the Times claims details specifics as granular as citizens’ locations at certain times, personal connections with others, and traveling companions — were created piecemeal from vast public data stores, including (but not limited to) Facebook profiles, voter registration records, tax data and property records. The NSA acknowledged the program in a statement to the Times, but declined to state the number of Americans involved. Any data queries are required to have some sort of “foreign intelligence justification,” an NSA spokeswoman told the Times. The report is the latest in a series of revelations on the scale and depth of U.S. surveillance efforts, kick-started by the bombshell disclosures of former NSA contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden over the summer. Since Snowden’s disclosures, Silicon Valley Internet companies have issued vehement denials that the U.S. government had carte blanche access to customer data. The extent to which companies can explain how much data has been handed over to the government is limited, however, as current laws prohibit companies from disclosing certain details related to national security. It is unclear how much the NSA’s graphing efforts rely on data from Facebook, Apple, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft or any other number of Internet companies that have complied with the government’s requests for private data. Read more of the Times’ in-depth account here .

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Talk NYC/WW is your daily download of the tech, marketing and advertising news you need to know. It’s smartly curated to keep you up to speed on the innovators and innovations that are shaking up the digital world today.